A KING OF FRANCE 
UNNAMED IN HISTORY 



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A KING OF FRANCE 

UNNAMED IN 
HISTORY 



BY 

CHARLES EDWARD CHENEY 




CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB 
1902 



n 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

FEB 2 1903 

Copyngnt Entry 
CLASS Oi, XXfc. No. 
CO 



PY B. ] 

■ i urn Bi i— rrr 



L/ ^ 



Copyright, 1902 
CHARLES EDWARD CHENEY 



The following pages are the result of 
researches outside of the beaten paths of 
mediaeval history. The mysterious career 
of Giannino of Siena, who claimed to be 
John I. of France, has stimulated the cu- 
riosity of European scholars, and elicited 
several monographs in both French and 
Italian, If, however, it has hitherto been 
narrated in English, the fact has escaped 
the investigations of the present writer. 
His grateful acknowledgments are due to 
friends in Rome and Paris for valuable 
assistance, to the Rev. William Fairley, 
D.D., Ph.D., for translations from mediae- 
val Latin, and especially to Mr. Frederick 
W. Gookin, secretary of the Chicago Lit- 
erary Club, for helpful suggestions and un- 
wearying care in passing the work through 
the press. 

C. E. C. 




A KING OF FRANCE 
UNNAMED IN HISTORY 




HE glory of the old Tuscan 
city of Siena is the cam- 
panile which bears the 
name of the Mangia. Tow- 
ering skyward with needle- 
like slenderness, it seems 
as it nears its full height 
J to expand as the tulip blos- 



soms on its graceful stem, and bears aloft, 
like the stamen of the flower, the sacred bell 
of the republic. For more than five hun- 
dred years has that brazen voice pealed on 
the ears of the Siennese. In mediaeval 
times its sonorous notes were associated 
with every phase and mood of the turbulent 
town. It was the great bell which sum- 
moned the citizens to war, rang out their joy 
in victory, and tolled forth their mourning 
in disaster. 



But when at high noon on the eighteenth 
day of October, in the year of grace 1359, 
the echoes of Siena were awakened by 
twelve strokes of the bell of the Mangia, 
there was none so ignorant as to mistake 
the meaning of the summons. It was the 
signal that the Seignory,* the supreme 
legislature of the republic, was about to 
meet in solemn session. The legal title of 
the body bespoke what place the great bell, 
at the call of which it assembled, held in 
the hearts of the people — for this Siennese 
Senate was known as "The Council of the 
Bell." f 

That assembly was the resultant product 
of innumerable revolutions — the final gov- 
ernmental structure in which the Siennese 
had taken refuge when the storms of their 
own fury had swept away its many prede- 
cessors. For singularly capricious and 
fickle as was the populace of all the Italian 
cities of the Middle Ages, no other of 
them had known such changes and incon- 
sistencies as marked the story of Siena.;); 
It is difficult to draw one thread of definite 
historic truth out of the confused tangle of 
dissension and bloodshed, when in less than 
half a year five revolutions convulsed the 
city. We only know that when the Coun- 

* Chroniques Siennoises: Introduction par le Due 
de Dino, p. 9. 

j" See Appendix V. 

J Siena, art. Encyc. Brit., Cesare Paoli. 
8 



cil of the Bell assembled on that October 
day, it was equally independent of the 
nobility and of the common people.* In 
the mysterious crucible of political evolu- 
tion there had been produced a supreme 
governing body to which no noble could 
belong, yet which the people did not choose. 
Composed exclusively of the class engaged 
in trade, its members were vested with the 
choice of their successors, and the body 
was thus self-perpetuating. We are not 
dependent wholly upon that seductive artist, 
the imagination, for a picture which shall 
set before our mental vision the appearance 
of the rulers of Siena. So many and so 
striking are the paintings of mediaeval 
times, transmitting to modern days the 
portraiture of similar assemblies, that it 
becomes easy to reconstruct the scene 
when the all-powerful Twelve responded 
with their presence to the summons of the 
great bell. 

Commerce was the secret of the great- 
ness of Siena; f and the wealth which had 
made her craftsmen and merchants famous 
through southern Europe appeared in the 
dress and decoration of these lords in the 
realm of trade. Velvet robes were bordered 
with costly fur, delicate laces half covered 
the hands, massive gold chains encircled 

* Chroniques Siennoises: Introduction par le Due 
de Dino, pp. 9, 23. 
t Ibid., p. 24. 



the neck, and jeweled buckles held to the 
broad hat the shadowing plumes which 
made darker still the swarthy Tuscan faces. 
The place of meeting was fitting such an 
assembly. The vast Palazzo Pubblico was 
not then the time-worn relic of an age long 
past. Just half a century before, in the 
year 1309, all Siena had gone wild with 
enthusiasm over the completion of the noble 
pile which still attests the genius of its 
architect. While as yet it had not lost the 
freshness of youth, it had already acquired 
some of the artistic treasures that have 
made the municipal palace the pride of the 
Siennese. As the Twelve gathered for de- 
liberation in the Hall of the Grand Council, 
the same frescoes by Simone Martini * 
looked down on them as upon the modern 
visitor. 

A letter of the poet Petrarch has been 
preserved, which records the circumstance 
that in that very October of I359.,f the 
winter came early to the plains of Lom- 
bardy, and drove the luxurious singer from 
his country home to the shelter of the city 
of Milan. We need not doubt, however, 
that mild autumn winds stirred the yet 
unfallen leaves of the chestnut woods which 
then covered the now naked hills about 

* Guide to Siena and San Gimignano, London, 
1885, p. 23. 

•fMemoires de Francois Petrarque, Amsterdam, 
1767, Vol. III., p. 522. 

10 



Siena, and that the warm Tuscan sun, mak- 
ing its way through the pointed windows of 
the Hall of the Grand Council, took some- 
thing from the chilly vastness of that great 
apartment. 

It was grave business which the rulers of 
Siena had met to transact. Two months 
was their brief term of office,* and now 
they were to choose the twelve burghers 
who, in succession to themselves, should 
hold sovereign power for November and 
December. Human nature was, then as 
now, tenacious of power once grasped, and 
the modern reader familiar with the muni- 
cipal politics of our American cities can 
hardly stifle the suspicion that the Council 
of the Bell may each alternate month have 
re-elected itself. Yet the quaint language 
of the archives of Siena seems to hint that 
this election was by lot. Thus runs the 
ancient chronicle: 

There were drawn out of the chest and the 
box existing in the chest, in which are de- 
scribed those who ought in the time to come 
to hold the office of the twelve lords adminis- 
trators and governors of the commonwealth 
and people of the State of Siena, for the said 
office of the twelve lords, and for the two 
months, namely, for November and December, 
next approaching, a ball of wax, on which was 
folded a small sheet of parchment; and on 

* Chroniques Siennoises, p. 140, makes the term 
but fifteen days. 

11 



this were found written, as I the Notary of 
the Reformation subscribed, read, twelve 
names.* 

The list which follows bears striking wit- 
ness to the complete exclusion of the ancient 
nobility from the government of Siena. 
Among the twelve one is specified as a 
shopkeeper, another as a dealer in linen, 
a third as a silk merchant, a fourth as 
a baker. The title to power in the Sien- 
nese republic lay, not in gentle blood or 
soldierly achievement, but in bourgeois line- 
age and success in the fields of commerce. 
Even the list proposed on that October 
afternoon was not to be accepted without 
challenge. For the notary adds that when 
he reached in his reading the name of 
"Janninus, or Gianni Guccio, the wool 
merchant of the section of Camollia," grave 
protest sprang to the lips of more than one 
member of the Seignory: not because of 
moral delinquency, intellectual incapacity or 
political turpitude, but because it had 
been clearly shown that Guccio was not a 
burgher born, but of blood royal, and heir 
apparent to the throne of France.f Upon 
that entry in the ancient minutes of the 
Council of the Bell hangs a tale that ranks 
among the strangest to be found in the 
annals of mediaeval Europe. Our story 
carries us nearly half a century backward 

* See Appendix V. | Ibid - 

12 



in point of time, and changes the scene 
from Central Italy to the capital of France. 
It is the 15th of November, 13 16. Paris 
is tumultuous with joy. Crowds throng the 
narrow streets. Houses are illuminated. 
Te Deum is sung at Notre Dame. His- 
tory does not record it, but we may hazard 
the guess that at the solemn services in 
which the church gave expression to the 
universal gladness of the people, the arch- 
bishop may have preached in the great 
cathedral from the text, "For unto us a 
child is born, to us a son is given, and the 
government shall be upon his shoulders." 

Five months earlier, on the 5 th of June,* 
Louis X., surnamed Le Hutin, or the 
Quarreler, had reached the end of his brief 
and stormy reign. His accession to the 
throne had brought the elder line of de- 
scent from Hugh Capet to its last gener- 
ation, and his death threatened France 
with the horrors of civil war. While Louis 
was yet a boy, his crafty father, Philip the 
Fair, to cement his own power, had negoti- 
ated the marriage of the young prince with 
the heiress of the ducal house of Burgundy. 
Similar splendid alliances had been made 
by Philip for his two younger sons. It 
casts a lurid light upon the morals of the 
great in that period of history, that each of 
the three princesses thus introduced into 

*Memoires relatifs a PHistoire de France. Paris, 
1825. 

13 



the royal family of France was accused — 
whether justly or unjustly, who can tell? — 
of unfaithfulness to her marriage vows, 
and condemned to a fearful doom.* The 
American tourist whose wanderings in 
France have led him to Les Andelys, on the 
right bank of the Seine, will long remem- 
ber the imposing ruins of the Chateau 
Gaillard, built by Richard Cceur de Lion 
in the twelfth century. In one of the 
horrible dungeons still to be explored in the 
remnant of the old Norman fortress, Mar- 
garet of Burgundy was strangled by order 
of her husband. 

The ill-fated young queen left a daughter 
who bore the name of Jeanne, and who was 
destined at a later period to act a conspicu- 
ous part in the tragedy of French and 
Burgundian history. 

Some of the chroniclers do not hesitate 
to assert that Louis' mad passion for 
Clemence, or Clementine, the sister of the 
King of Hungary, was the real source from 
which sprang the indictment of Queen 
Margaret, and her cruel execution.f Cer- 
tain it is that crowding close upon Marga- 
ret's death came the marriage of her hus- 
band to the Hungarian princess. 

In the case of Louis le Hutin "the mills 

*Milman's Latin Christianity, Vol. VI., p. 533. 
Dareste's Histoire de France, Vol. II., p. 378. 

|Martin, Histoire de France, Vol. IV., p. 523. 
Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, Vol. XL, p. 309. 

14 



of the gods" did not ' 'grind slow." Less 
than a year from his second marriage,* and 
only eighteen months from the unhappy 
day on which he became King of France, 
he sickened and died. So insignificant was 
the personality of the man, and so inglori- 
ous the career of the monarch, that even 
the more elaborate histories of France dis- 
miss the reign of Louis X. with little more 
than the mention of his name. 

Not infrequently the actual experience of 
disaster is more easily endured than the 
suspense which precedes it. The French 
people groped like a ship in a fog, through 
the awful uncertainty which followed the 
death of Louis X. For once the populace 
of Paris could not shout, "The King is 
dead. Long live the King!" For Louis 
had no successor. From the days of Hugh 
Capet, through more than three hundred 
years, each monarch at his death had 
handed down the scepter to his son.f 

But when the bells of Notre Dame an- 
nounced the death of Louis the Quarreler, 
there was none to claim parentage from 
him — save the little girl Jeanne — pitiful 
offspring of a father utterly contemptible, 
and a mother whose savage murder had not 
obliterated the stains upon her memory. 
The child was not without a champion of 
her claims to be Queen of France. The 

*Duruy, Histoire de France, Vol. I., p. 411. 
|Dareste, Hist, de France, Vol. II., p. 387. 

15 



potent Duke of Burgundy,* her mother's 
brother, demanded that there should be no 
departure from the immemorial precedent 
by which the crown descended from the 
parent to the child. 

But closer to the seat of power was Philip, 
Count of Poitou, brother of the dead king. 
As the nearest male relative of Louis, this 
prince had been immediately proclaimed 
regent of the realm till the question of suc- 
cession should be settled. But his vaulting 
ambition was not satisfied with any tempo- 
rary possession of sovereignty. Out from 
the musty archives of Carlovingian tradition 
the cunning plotter dragged an almost for- 
gotten statute that certain territories known 
as "Salic" lands could not be inherited by 
a woman.f With the convincing logic which 
has rarely failed to make the despot irre- 
sistible in argument, Philip insisted upon 
the application of this ancient custom to the 
title to the throne of France. With the 
ruthless exclusion of the young Jeanne 
began the so-called "Salic Law," which 
bound France to a line of male rulers — 
however hateful — so long as the nation was 
ruled by monarchical authority .J 

But for Philip, shrewd schemer though 
he was, the voyage to the royal "haven 

* Monmerque, p. 13; Dareste, Vol. II., p. 388. 
tDareste, Vol. II., p. 388. 

$ Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, Vol. IX., p. 
352. 

16 



where he would be" was not yet "plain 
sailing." There was another and more 
perplexing contingency to be reckoned with. 
The widowed Queen Clemence was expect- 
ing the birth of a posthumous child and heir 
of Louis X. All authorities concur in as- 
cribing to the noblesse at this critical junc- 
ture an intense suspicion of Philip, and 
perhaps still more of Mathilde, Countess of 
Artois,* whose daughter was the regent's 
wife. This haughty woman had not scru- 
pled to express in the most public way her 
chagrin that her son-in-law had not been 
seated on the throne when the death of his 
brother made it vacant. The great heredi- 
tary lords saw with keen apprehension that 
the selfish ambition of Philip was tempted 
by an opportunity which placed the prize of 
regal power just within his grasp. Him- 
self already king except in name, and with 
his unscrupulous mother-in-law in constant 
attendance upon Queen Clemence, nothing 
was easier than to compass the early death 
of the child with whose fate the future of 
France was bound up. Against so perilous 
a contingency the great barons of France 
proceeded to make provision. The exact 
date and the precise place of the meeting 
vary slightly in the different chronicles, but 
certain it is that while the posthumous child 
of Louis le Hutin was yet unborn, an 

*Gigli, Diario Sanese, quoted by Monmerque, 
Dissertation Historique, p. 73. 

i7 



assembly of the princes and highest nobility- 
was held, at which an agreement was 
reached, to which Philip himself, however 
reluctantly, assented. The Duke of Bur- 
gundy withdrew the claim of his little niece 
Jeanne, to whom was flung the sop of a possi- 
ble inheritance of the kingdom of Navarre.* 
Relieved of this peril to his claim, Philip 
entered into a solemn covenant with the 
barons and lords of France, that should the 
child of Louis and Clemence prove to be a 
son, he should be proclaimed king immedi- 
ately on his birth, but Philip should be 
guardian of the baby-monarch and regent 
of the realm until the young prince should 
attain the age of eighteen years.f But if 
the child had the misfortune to be a girl, 
Philip should become king not only in fact, 
but by public acknowledgment and conse- 
cration. Hated and feared as Philip was, 
little wonder that the thoughts and prayers 
of France, from the peasant to the peer, 
were centered on that chamber in the fort- 
ress of the Louvre, where from the time of 
Philip Augustus the heirs to the crown of 
France had first seen the light of day. 
Little wonder that when, on the 15th of 
November, 1316,^: the gorgeously arrayed 

* Chronique de St. Victor. See foot-note in 
Monmerque, pp. 10, II. 

I Sismondi, Vol. IX., p. 338. Others say twenty- 
four years. Monmerque, Dissert. Histor., p. 8. 

J Sismondi, Vol. IX., p. 344. 



heralds proclaimed that a young prince had 
that day been born to the late King Louis 
of blessed memory and to the gracious 
Queen Clemence, the bells rang till the 
steeples rocked, joyous crowds thronged 
the streets, and bonfires blazed in every 
public place. When, a little later, in accord 
with a vow which the queen had made to 
St. John the Baptist,* the young prince was 
christened John, the people hailed as an 
omen of good the relinquishment of the 
names Philip and Louis which their mon- 
archs had borne through so many genera- 
tions, and to this day the hapless babe is 
counted in the history of France as "John 

I."t 

Short-lived was the popular jubilation. 
The chroniclers of that period relate that 
when but eight days old the royal infant, 
inheriting feebleness of constitution from 
both its parents, suddenly died, and all 
France was plunged in mourning. The 
brief sunshine which had broken through 
the clouds of misrule shadowing the nation, 
was turned to midnight when John I. was 
laid at the feet of his father in the tombs 
of his ancestors at St. Denis,;); and Philip, 
fifth of the name, was proclaimed King of 
France and Navarre. 

* Gigli's Diario Sanese, quoted by Monmerqu£, 
P. 73- 

t Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, Vol. IX., p. 344. 
X Martin, Hist, de France, Vol. IV., p. 533. 

19 



Thus far we have traveled a road known 
to scholars. Every student of French his- 
tory may verify the pathetic tale of the 
little king whose birth was welcomed as 
the advent of a deliverer, and whose life 
and reign were bounded by the horizon of 
a single week. But he whose curiosity 
prompts him to search amidst the dust of 
mediaeval archives for truth stranger than 
fiction will find an account of the only son 
of Louis X. of France widely variant from 
the narratives of Sismondi, or Guizot, or 
Martin. While there is no lack of corrobo- 
rative testimony in other documents, the 
principal source of information is contained 
in an unpublished manuscript in the Chigi 
Library in Rome. The work of a Domini- 
can monk, Sigismund Titius (or Tiziano),* it 
is the fullest and most elaborate history of 
the republic of Siena which has been pre- 
served to modern times. The remainder 
of this paper will follow closely the record 
of this mediaeval chronicle. 

The suspicion and fear with which Philip 
of Poitou and his ally, the Countess of 
Artois, had inspired the great lords at the 
court of France, had taken form in an un- 
usual precaution. Some weeks before the 
birth of the royal child, two barons of 
ancient lineage and distinguished services 
to France were appointed, together with 
their wives, to be a personal guard to 

* Article Siena, Encyclop. Brit., Vol. XXII., p. 43. 

20 



Queen Clemence.* Knowing that Philip's 
succession to his dead brother's throne 
hung upon the question whether the queen 
should give birth to a son or a daughter, 
these guardians were solemnly sworn to 
forestall any injury to the mother or the 
infant, and to detect and prevent any 
fraudulent attempt to misrepresent the sex 
of the child. Their watchful anxiety was 
not allayed when, after the birth of the 
young prince, the Countess of Artois de- 
manded the privilege of holding him in her 
arms on the occasion of his public presenta- 
tion to the people of Paris. f The barons 
were well aware that this unscrupulous 
woman and her crafty son-in-law, maddened 
with the disappointment of their hope, and 
reckless as to the means to be used to gain 
their end, might seize the opportunity to 
compass the death of the new-born king 
when he should be shown to a loyal popu- 
lace. Suspicion of their purpose grew as it 
was discovered that the Countess of Artois 
had set afloat through Paris the rumor J 
that the babe was a feeble and puny infant, 
and was liable to die at any moment. 
With a spirit characteristic of the Middle 
Ages, the protectors of the royal child re- 

* Rienzi's Charte, Monmerque, Dissertation His- 
torique, p. 41. Vide Appendix IV. 

I Chifflet, Lumina Salica, Antwerp, 1660, Vol. I., 
p. 278. Rienzi's Charte, Appendix IV. 

J Chifflet, quoted by Monmarque, Dissert. Hist., 
P. 57- 

21 



solved to "fight fire with fire." They, too, 
could resort to stratagem, and if Philip and 
his fellow-plotter were mining in the dark, 
their opponents with equal secrecy could 
countermine. 

Our story leads us from the abode of 
royalty to the seat of a power which in 
mediaeval times rivaled and often eclipsed 
that of kings. In one of the numerous 
nunneries in the outskirts of Paris a young 
mother, over whom scarcely fifteen sum- 
mers had passed, was half the guest and 
half the prisoner of her relative, the Lady 
Abbess. Born of the noble stock of the 
Sieur de Picard,* a household famous in the 
region about Crecy, where a generation 
later Edward the Black Prince crushed the 
power of the House of Valois, the girl, left 
fatherless in her infancy, had been reared 
by her widowed mother and two elder 
brothers. Into the neighborhood of Crecy, 
some time in 13 15, a young Tuscan mer- 
chant had found his way. The great pa- 
trician family of the Tolomei, the most 
aristocratic in Siena,f did not feel itself 
degraded in adding to its vast wealth by 
traffic in the woolen fabrics which to this 
day constitute the principal factor in Sien- 
nese commerce. Guccio di Mino di Gieri 
Baglioni was a nephew of Spinello di To- 
lomei, and became the representative of 

*Papencordt's Rienzi, p. 320. 
I Siena, Cesare Paoli, p. 42. 
22 



the great nobleman's extended trade with 
France. 

How a youth engaged in commercial 
pursuits — even though connected with a 
noble house — should have overcome the 
prejudice with which the warlike French 
noblesse looked down upon the Italian 
tendency to traffic, it would be difficult to 
explain. Certain it is, however, that Pierre 
and Jean de Picard welcomed Guccio to 
their hunting and fowling excursions, and 
made him a frequent guest at their ancestral 
chateau. 

Quick and terrible was their revulsion of 
feeling when one day the discovery was 
made that the handsome young Tuscan had 
not only won the affection of their little 
sister Marie, but had betrayed their hospi- 
tality by a secret marriage. The furious 
brothers drove Guccio out of France, and 
warned him that if he ever again crossed 
the Italian border, his life would pay the 
forfeit.* In vain the poor Marie pleaded, 
and showed her wedding-ring. They would 
acknowledge no marriage which should 
commingle the blood of the Picards with 
that of a base Italian trader. They tried 
to hide their disgraced sister by placing her 
in the care of her aunt, the Abbess of the 
Convent of the Filles Dieu at Paris, where 
her child was born a fortnight earlier than 
the baby king. 

* Chifflet, quoted by Monmerque, p. 56. 
2 3 



But the story spread, and reaching the 
ears of the barons appointed to watch over 
the queen and the heir apparent, they sum- 
moned Marie de Picard to be the royal 
infant's nurse. 

One chronicler asserts that the barons 
assured the young mother that no harm to 
her babe could follow her permission to 
have him dressed in robes spangled with 
fleurs de lis, and to allow his exhibition to 
the populace as the new-born king. They 
urged that in some vague and unexplained 
way she would thus show her patriotism 
and her loyalty to the infant sovereign.* 
Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that in 
such an age of history the pride of her 
mother-heart was flattered with the thought 
of her son appearing, even for a brief 
moment, in the guise of a monarch. 

The day arrived on which the people of 
Paris were to see the child whose advent 
had filled all France with joy. At one of 
the great windows of the palace appeared 
Mathilde, Countess of Artois. In her arms 
she bore a babe, whose tiny figure seemed 
strangely disproportioned to the jeweled 
robes of ermine-fringed velvet which pro- 
claimed his rank, and on whose drooping 
head was fastened a crown flashing with 
diamonds. f Unconscious that, despite her 
shrewdness, a clever trick had been played 

* Gigli, quoted by Monmerque\ p. 76. 
•fRienzi's Charte. See Appendix IV. 
24 



upon her, Mathilde, when the eager crowd 
had satisfied their enthusiastic loyalty, with- 
drew from the balcony, but not till she had 
wrought the evil deed to accomplish which 
she had asked the honor of displaying the 
young king to his future subjects. Authori- 
ties differ as to the mode in which the 
murder was committed. Some assert that 
poison concealed in a finger-ring was in- 
jected through the child's tender skin. 
Others relate that in a more brutal way the 
Countess crushed the infant in her strong 
grasp till some internal injury assured its 
death. Still others hint that a slender 
needle was used to pierce the skull and 
reach the brain.* However the deed may 
have been done, we know that on the en- 
suing day a black cloud lowered over 
France, and a mourning people were told 
that their young king was dead. Only to 
two or three great lords and ladies, and to 
a broken-hearted young mother who went 
back to her convent-cell carrying a babe 
not her own, was it known that the mur- 
dered child was that of a Tuscan trader, 
and that the survivor of the tragedy was the 
son of Louis X., and heir to the throne of 
France. The chroniclers tell us that when 
the barons announced to the young woman 
they had so cruelly deceived that her child 
was dead, they were terrified by her piteous 
wailing. But while they tried to quiet her 

* Gigli, quoted by Monmerque, p. 76. 

25 



cries of grief by pointing out the peril be- 
trayal of their common secret would bring 
to her as to them, they also pictured to her 
imagination the rank and wealth which 
would be her reward when her foster-child 
should attain his rightful crown.* Through 
the Louvre they caused the report to run 
that the nurse of the dead prince showed 
the loyalty and affectionateness of her 
nature by a sorrow as bitter as if the royal 
infant had been her own offspring. 

That the secret would be guarded well 
may be easily believed. For Philip of 
Poitou became by the supposed death of 
his nephew unquestioned king of France. 
Had Marie de Picard revealed the royal 
lineage of the babe which she had adopted 
as her own, or had the lords of the court 
told how they had contrived and executed 
the exchange of the children, it would have 
had no result but to bring down on their 
own heads the certain and terrible ven- 
geance of the king. 

So passed nearly ten years. The young 
foster-mother of an unknown prince was 
once more reconciled to her family, and 
restored to the ancestral castle at Crecy. 
Meantime her husband ventured again into 
France, and from Paris wrote pleading 
letters to the wife from whom he had so 
long been parted, entreating her that he 
might be permitted to see his son. It is 

*Rienzi's Charte. See Appendix IV. 
26 



easy to understand that the bereaved mother 
should have shrunk from weaving further 
the tangled web of deception, and that she 
hesitated long before granting a request 
which involved the false hypothesis that 
the boy was the child of Guccio. At last, 
however, the appeal became too urgent to 
be longer resisted, and the young Jean, or 
Gianni, was sent to Paris to meet his sup- 
posed father. But the wily Tuscan never 
sent back the borrowed boy. Taking him 
to Siena, Guccio educated the child in the 
schools where the young Siennese burghers 
were fitted for trade. At the proper age 
he was launched on the tide of business as 
a member of the wool-weavers' corpora- 
tion,* and when, in 1 340, the elder Guccio 
died, his supposed son had become a con- 
spicuous figure in Siena. A prosperous 
merchant, repeatedly holding the highest 
municipal offices, and finally intrusted with 
the great responsibilities of administrator of 
the hospital of Santa Maria della Miseri- 
cordia, Gianni di Guccio lived an unambi- 
tious life, contented with his lot, and enjoy- 
ing the boundless confidence of his fellow- 
burghers of Siena. 

Once more the scene shifts to France. 
It is the month of June, 1345-f To the 
castle of the Picards at Crecy, a Spanish 
monk of the neighboring Augustinian con- 

* Chroniques Siennoises, p. 24. 
"j" Papencordt's Rienzi, p. 322. 

27 



vent, has been summoned in hot haste. 
Marie de Picard, conscious that her end is 
near, has sent for the holy father to hear 
her last confession. On the ear of the 
astonished priest falls a story which fear 
had locked in this woman's breast for nearly 
thirty years. She tells him that the true 
King of France is in a foreign country, 
living a tradesman's life, not only unknown 
to his subjects, but himself unconscious of 
the high dignity of his birth. Nor does the 
dying woman allow her confessor to leave 
her, till, under every solemn sanction of his 
religion, he has sworn that he will seek the 
son of Louis X., and lay before him the 
proofs of his royalty, and urge him to claim 
his own. 

It was a critical hour in the history of 
France. Philip the Long had died after a 
brief reign. Charles IV. had speedily fol- 
lowed his brothers, and now, so far as 
France knew, no male heir in the elder line 
from Hugh Capet existed to claim the 
crown. Philip of Valois, representing the 
younger branch of the Capetian dynasty, 
had been for seventeen years upon the 
throne. Meantime Edward III. of Eng- 
land had pressed his title to the sovereignty 
of France by crushing victories over the 
house of Valois. The French people were 
rent by intestine dissensions. Earthquakes 
had desolated the land. Fearful pesti- 
lences had sent mourning into palaces and 

28 



hovels.* To Father Jordan, the Augus- 
tinian confessor of Marie Picard, the secret 
significance *of these scourges of God was 
revealed as by a light from heaven. They 
could only mean that Divine judgment 
would not be withdrawn from unhappy 
France until the true king, hidden alike 
from his people and himself, was brought 
back to his just inheritance. But while the 
monk's conscience led him to resolve to 
spend his days in seeking out the lost prince, 
he could not conquer his fear of Philip of 
Valois.f Nine years appear to have passed 
without action. But in 1354, Jordan con- 
fided the last testament of Marie Picard 
to a French Augustinian monk, Father 
Antoine, whose repeated visits to Italy had 
fitted him for his delicate responsibility. 
Landing near Genoa, Antoine was stricken 
with sudden and severe illness.^ He had 
heard, before leaving France, the romantic 
history of Cola di Rienzi, with which all 
Europe was ringing, and knew that for a 
second time, and with the full approval of 
the Pope, the once banished Tribune was 
reigning in supreme and splendid power in 
Rome. In Rienzi, Antoine recognized a 
God-elected man, whose mission on earth 
was to right every wrong. To him, there- 

* Rienzi's Charte, Appendix IV. 
t Letter of Antoine, Appendix I. Also Rienzi's 
Charte, Appendix IV. 
J Ibid. 

29 



fore, the monk sent not only the full account 
of the concealed King of France, but the 
documents and other evidences which Marie 
de Picard had intrusted to the monk 
Jordan. 

It should be said that this letter of 
Antoine to Rienzi is differentiated from all 
the other versions of the story of Giannino 
by a marked variation in one particular.* 
It does not mention the Countess of 
Artois, nor even hint at the terrible iniquity 
with which she is charged by the other 
writers. On the contrary, the monk makes 
the barons who sought a nurse for the 
new-born prince to have intrusted the 
royal babe to the Lady Marie de Picard, 
while that youthful mother was still an in- 
mate of the monastery. Her own child 
was cared for by a nurse, and the two 
women with the infants occupied the same 
apartment. At dead of night they discov- 
ered that the child of Guccio and Marie 
was lying lifeless beside the woman charged 
with its care. For some reason which 
Antoine does not explain, the Lady Marie 
is represented as taking the dead Giannino 
and placing him beside herself, consigning 
the living son of King Louis to the serving- 
woman, and thus deceiving the attendants 
whom her cries attracted to the chamber. 
Antoine therefore lays the responsibility of 
the exchange of the royal child for another 

* See the full text of Antoine's letter in Appendix I. 
30 



to the Lady Marie herself, instead of the 
barons who watched over the safety of the 
young prince. What renders this dis- 
crepant narrative the more perplexing is 
the fact that the "Charte," or elaborate 
statement made by Rienzi to attest the 
claims of Giannino, although evoked by the 
letter of Antoine, repeats the story as re- 
lated by the other writers. In that remark- 
able document, written but a few days 
before the death of the Tribune, he dis- 
tinctly records that the lords of the court 
planned and executed the scheme by which 
the prince was saved from the murderess 
who plotted his destruction. Rienzi un- 
hesitatingly attributes the death of the child 
of the Lady Marie to Mathilde of Artois. 
With this statement agree no less than four 
independent contemporary documents. 

It is well to remember, however, that 
this discrepancy affects only the method, 
not the fact, of the exchange of the child of 
Guccio for the son of Louis X. of France. 
It is a principle of all sound historic criti- 
cism that when the chroniclers differ in 
subordinate particulars, but agree in the 
main incident which they relate, it invests 
that incident with the stronger probability. 
It should not be forgotten that the monk 
Antoine was a subject of the King of 
France.* The journey into Italy was un- 
dertaken for a definite purpose, having ac- 

* Rienzi's Charte, Appendix IV. 
3i 



complished which, he expected to return 
again to his native land. Compelled by 
his serious illness to substitute a written 
for an oral communication of his story to 
Rienzi, whom he knew only by reputation, 
Antoine might well hesitate to prefer a 
written indictment of an attempt at regicide 
against so powerful and so revengeful a 
woman as the Countess of Artois. Nor 
would it be inconsistent with the ecclesi- 
astical conscience of that age so to sup- 
press or alter a mere detail of the revelation 
he unfolded as to avoid making an humble 
monk the accuser of one so closely allied 
to royalty. 

Startling as a lightning-flash out of the 
cloudless heaven it must have been when, 
one September day in 1354,* a messenger, 
booted and spurred, rode his jaded horse 
into the courtyard of Gianni Guccio's house 
at Siena, and announced himself as an 
envoy of Rienzi. Wasting no words, and 
giving no explanation of his master's pur- 
pose, he simply conveyed the oral mandate 
of the great ruler of Rome, that Guccio 
should present himself at the capitol with- 
out delay. It would be interesting if we 
knew what conjectures may have filled the 
mind of the Siennese wool-merchant as to 
the possible reason that one who then was 
counted among the very greatest and most 
powerful of mankind should desire a con- 

*Papencordt's Rienzi, p. 323. 
32 



ference with an humble burgher of Tuscany. 
Most probable it is that his commercial 
instincts and training led Guccio to dream 
of profits to be made in some rich contract 
for supplies to Rienzi's armies, then warring 
against the revolting barons of Rome. 
Certain it is that farthest from the dreams 
of his fancy was the thought that the in- 
vitation had a political significance. The 
proverbial caution of the man of affairs was 
exhibited in Guccio' s refusal to take the 
journey to Rome until he should receive a 
written summons in Rienzi's own hand, and 
sealed with his own signet. It speaks vol- 
umes for Rienzi's profound conviction that 
in Guccio he had found the true heir to the 
French crown, that in compliance with the 
wool-trader's stipulation a second messen- 
ger was dispatched to Siena, bearing an 
autograph letter of the Dictator of Rome — 
a letter which has been preserved to the 
present day.* 

On the second day of October, 1354, a 
dusty cavalcade entered Rome by the gate 
now known as the Porta del Popolo, and 
drew up before a little hostelry which then 
fronted on the Campo di Fiore. Leaving 
his servants at the inn, and without more 
delay than was demanded by the arranging 
of his dress, disordered by his long ride, 
Guccio hastened to the capitol. Admitted 
without delay to the presence of Rienzi, 

* See Appendix II. 

33 



and welcomed with that singular charm of 
manner which drew all men to the ill-fated 
Tribune, Guccio was ushered by his host 
into a private cabinet, where they could be 
alone.* Closing the door, Rienzi flung 
himself upon his knees, and saluted the 
wool-merchant of Siena as the rightful King 
of France. Bewildered by this amazing 
reception, and perhaps with the thought 
that Rienzi' s intellect had given way under 
the strain of his cares and responsibilities, 
Guccio refused to let the great ruler of 
Rome humble himself to kiss the hand of a 
simple burgher of Siena. But before his 
eyes were spread the documents which had 
been transmitted by Marie de Picard as she 
lay upon her death-bed. The sworn state- 
ment of Father Jordan, and the marvelous 
circumstantial proofs which had been 
placed in Rienzi's hands, became irresist- 
ible. Reluctantly, and doubtless with many 
a yearning for the happy days of honorable 
and honored bourgeois life which he must 
leave behind him, Guccio accepted his high 
destiny as heir of an historic crown, and 
God-appointed deliverer of unhappy France. 
Six days after Guccio had learned the 
secret of his royal lineage, the mob of Rome 
tore Rienzi to pieces at the gate of the 
capitol.f Guccio went back to Siena with 
a prisoner locked in his breast who was 

* Papencordt's Rienzi, p. 323. 
t Ibid., p. 325. 

34 



perpetually knocking for release. True, he 
once more took up his old life. Business 
thrived. His family was growing up about 
him. But Gianni Guccio could never again 
be to himself just what he had been before 
the fateful hour in which he met Cola 
di Rienzi. As was natural to mediaeval J 
piety, the burden on his mind was lifted! 
at the confessional. Father Bartolomeo 
Mino, whose name would suggest his be- 
ing a relative of Guccio, was a priest who 
bore a deserved reputation for piety and 
sound judgment. When the astonishing 
revelation was poured into his ear, the con- 
fessor counseled that it should remain a 
secret till God in his own good time should 
send such a conjunction of events as should 
make it clear that the hour for speech and 
action had arrived. Two years later, on 
the 9th of October, 1356,* God's bell 
seemed to sound its warning on the ears 
of Guccio and Fra Bartolomeo. On that 
day the tidings reached Siena that the vast 
armies of France had been crushed at 
Poitiers, that the great lords and princes of 
the realm had been slain or made prison- 
ers, and that King John of the House of 
Valois had been carried captive into Eng- 
land. So deeply did the miseries of France 
touch the people of Siena, that for the 
moment the traditional feud of the aristoc- 

*Gigli, quoted in Dissert. Hist, p. 81. Also 
Papencordt, p. 326. 

35 



racy and the bourgeois was forgotten, and 
all classes met in a great assembly to ex- 
press their commiseration.* Suddenly the 
Fra Bartolomeo rose. He declared that 
the hour had struck for the only legitimate 
King of France to claim his own. That 
king had long dwelt among his fellow-citi- 
zens at Siena unrecognized and unhonored. 
Before the astonished multitude the elo- 
quent priest set forth the salient points of 
Guccio's birth and early life, and finally 
produced the last will and testament of 
Marie de Picard, with its solemn declara- 
tion that her babe had been substituted for 
the royal child, and that thus the heir ap- 
parent had escaped the murderous hands 
of the Countess of Artois. A wild enthu- 
siasm seized upon Siena. Municipal pride 
was stimulated by the knowledge that 
within the walls of the ancient town a king 
of France had been reared from his child- 
hood. The story of Guccio spread like fire 
in the dry grass of autumn. All Tuscany 
was aroused. Fuel was added to the flame 
when the two monks, Jordan and Antoine, 
who were on a pilgrimage to the Holy 
Sepulchre, wrote letters from Palermo to 
the Grand Council and to the bishop of 
Siena, confirming all that Fra Bartolomeo 
had already revealed. f Guccio's friends 
were organized into a propaganda to push 

* Papencordt's Rienzi, p. 326. 
t Ibid., p. 327. 

36 



his interests in every European court. Fra 
Bartolomeo was sent on an embassy to 
Rome, and swayed the senators and coun- 
cil of the Eternal City with so profound a 
conviction that they in their turn sent out 
their envoys to the other states of Italy, 
pleading for recognition and support of 
Guccio. 

Louis, King of Hungary, nephew to 
Queen Clemence, eagerly embraced the 
cause of his royal cousin, and addressed 
a letter to all the princes, prelates, and 
governments of Europe, declaring his full 
belief in the validity of Guccio's title. * 

Louis also asserted that he had personally 
set on foot thorough historical investiga- 
tions, which had confirmed, in the minutest 
particulars, the narrative which Marie de 
Picard had related to her confessor. 

The kingdom of Navarre, at this time 
governed by a regent, entered into open 
alliance with Guccio. City after city in 
his native France proclaimed him king. 
Some of the great French nobility offered 
him allegiance. In the papal court at 
Avignon he gained the adhesion of car- 
dinals and prelates nearest to the Pope. 
Nor was Guccio lacking the most essential 
element of success. Enormously wealthy 
through prosperous trade, his exchequer was 
swollen by fifty thousand gold florins con- 
tributed by the persecuted Jews of Hun- 

* Papencordt's Rienzi, p. 329. 

37 



gary, Carinthia, and Austria, who promised 
even greater gifts in response to his pledge 
that when King of France he would protect 
them from their enemies.* Furnished with 
an amount of ready money such as few 
monarchs of that day could boast, Guccio 
had already entered upon negotiations with 
one of those bands of mercenaries who 
constituted the main reliance in the military 
operations of the Middle Ages. Suddenly 
a combination of adverse events fell like a 
blighting frost upon the springing growths 
of his ambition. At Avignon the Pope was 
the creature of the King of France. At 
first not ill disposed to listen to those who 
told Guccio 's romantic story, the pontiff 
suddenly awoke to the peril which the new 
movement had created. For one of Guc- 
cio's lieutenants with an armed force had 
seized on the fortress of Codolet, only a 
few miles from Pope Innocent's gorgeous 
palace at Avignon. The letter in which 
His Holiness relates this incident to Louis, 
King of Sicily, is still extant.f The enor- 
mous power of the church was interposed 
to block the plans of Guccio. The French 
monarch, who had but lately been released 
from captivity in England, J set a price 
upon the head of his rival. Conscious that 

* Papencordt's Rienzi, p. 329. 
|See Dissert. Historique, p. 25. Full text of 
letter. 

X Martin, Hist, de France, Vol. V., p. 229. 

38 



their trade with France would be injured 
by their active participation in Guccio' s 
schemes, his fellow-tradesmen of Siena 
grew indifferent and finally hostile. But 
strong conviction of his royal origin spurred 
Guccio on to restless wandering over 
Europe. He pleads his cause again with 
his kinsman, the King of Hungary. He 
appears at the Court of Austria. Then 
we find him at Milan. At the head of a 
band of mercenaries, he crossf 3 the borders 
of France and gains success, which strikes 
terror to the luxurious sycophants of the 
papal court at Avignon. In a luckless 
hour, when perhaps unattended by his fol- 
lowers, Guccio was seized, on the 7th of 
January, 1 36 1, and imprisoned in the fort- 
ress of St. Etienne, near Nice, by Matteo 
di Gesualdo, Seneschal of Provence. 

Chifnet's narrative, hereafter to be re- 
ferred to, supplies an otherwise missing link 
in the chain of events.* From St. Etienne 
Guccio was transferred to Marseilles, where 
his wealth enabled him to bribe his guards, 
and to make his way to the Mediterranean. 
But the ship-captains turned a deaf ear to 
the fugitive's appeals. Then, desperate as 
a hunted deer, he sought sanctuary in the 
churches. But from their altars he was 
sternly driven. Had not Pope Innocent 
denounced him? Betrayed for the second 
time into the hands of Gesualdo, the Sene- 

* Monmerque, Dissert. Historique, pp. 62, 63. 
39 



schal resolved to place his prisoner where 
escape would be impossible. Over Pro- 
vence, that land of poetry, romance, and 
chivalry, Louis of Tarento, King of Naples, 
held the scepter of suzerainty. Bound by 
every tie of politics and consanguinity to 
the House of Valois, Louis would find in 
the possession of this captive an opportu- 
nity to prove his loyalty to his ally at Paris. 
To Naples, therefore, Gesualdo brought his 
captive, and over the picturesque career of 
Guccio falls the impenetrable shadow of 
the Castel del Ovo,* an island fortress in 
the Bay of Naples. 

Few are the phenomena of nature which 
possess more attractiveness, or more com- 
pletely absorb the interest of the beholder, 
than the unreal creations of a mirage. But 
even when they most nearly approach real- 
ity, the mind is always conscious that they 
are after all the effects of a mere optical 
illusion. Has the strange story of this 
mediaeval claimant of a throne no better 
basis than a fairy tale? Shall we remand 
it to the same category with the legends of 
King Arthur, or the earlier tradition of the 
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, because most 
of the great historians of France, if they 
knew of the tale, only treated it with silent 
contempt? 

One modern French writer, profoundly 

* Gigli, quoted by Monmerque, p. 85. 
4° 



interested in the discovery of the docu- 
mentary proofs on which the story of 
Guccio rests, refuses to accept the evidence 
he had laboriously gathered, because, as he 
frankly says, such acceptance would invali- 
date the royal title of the long dynasties of 
the Valois and the Bourbons from 1328 to 
1789.* His statement suggests that it is 
at least possible that a like motive may 
account for the unbroken silence regarding 
this episode of the Middle Ages, which 
broods over all the voluminous histories of 
France — written as most of them were 
when princes of the Bourbon race sat upon 
the throne. Few are the attested facts of 
mediaeval chronicles which are based on 
firmer foundations than the existence of 
Gianni Guccio, the fact that he claimed 
heirship to Louis X. of France, and that 
thousands of his contemporaries held his 
title to be valid. 

The minutes of the Council of the Bell,f 
with the declaration that this member of 
the Siennese legislature was ineligible to 
re-election because of his royal blood, are 
to be found in the archives of Siena. 
That record embraces a full transcript of 
the letter which King Louis of Hungary 
addressed to all the sovereignties of Europe 
asking the recognition of Guccio as the 
lawful King of France. This letter con- 

* Monmerque\ p. 33. 
"j" Appendix V. 

4 1 



tains the account, as already given in this 
paper, of the exchange by which another 
child became the vicarious sacrifice for the 
infant prince. 

To precisely the same effect is the ac- 
count given in the manuscript history of 
Sigismund Tiziano.** That chronicle is a 
quarry which has furnished modern writers 
with material for their histories, much as 
the Coliseum and the Forum supplied the 
builders of Roman palaces in the Middle 
Ages. Tiziano asserts that all through the 
stormy period when France was the prey 
of internal disorder and foreign invasion, 
the belief was never wholly extinguished 
that the son of Louis le Hutin still lived. 
He tells us that Rienzi declared that he had 
found the story floating in the ecclesiastical 
atmosphere of the papal court at Avignon. 
The letter just referred to, written by Pope 
Innocent, is of unquestioned authenticity 
and genuineness. 

Matteo Villani, the Florentine historian, 
who was a contemporary of Guccio, while 
blundering with regard to many minor 
details, records the invasion of southern 
France by the armed forces under Guccio's 
command. 

Jean Jacques Chifflet, a French physician 
and antiquarian, published in 1660 a volu- 
minous work called "Lumina Salica," 

* Encyc. Brit., art. Siena. 
42 



which contains an elaborate history of 
Guccio,* varying in no essential particular 
from that which this paper has outlined. 
He declares that his narrative is an accu- 
rate reproduction of an autobiography of 
Guccio, partly written during his imprison- 
ment in Naples, and continued after his 
death by Solomon Piccolomini and Thomas 
Agazzano, who was a relative of Guccio by 
marriage. Chifflet relates that at the 
period when he wrote there were at least 
two copies of this biography in Italy, and 
that the one to which he had access was in 
the Barberini Library. 

In 1723 Girolamo Gigli, one of the most 
erudite historical scholars of Italy, published 
his "Diario Sanese," or Sienese Journal. 
It is a work of marvelous learning and 
accuracy of information. His account of 
the birth of Guccio, his having been ex- 
changed for another child, and his subse- 
quent career is almost identical with that 
of Chifflet, but is drawn from different 
sources While the French historian had 
unearthed the romantic story as told in the 
autobiography contained in the Barberini 
Library at Rome, Gigli had discovered the 
same facts related in Tiziano's History of 
Siena in the Chigi Library. But his prin- 
cipal authority was the entirely independent 
testimony of the municipal archives of 

* Monmerque, p. 29. 

43 



Siena, to which during his long residence in 
that city Gigli had free access.* 

In 1843 there was discovered in the vast 
antiquarian collection in Paris, known as the 
Cabinet des Chartes, three most valuable 
documents. These consisted of the letter 
in which the monk Antoine revealed to 
Rienzi the secret of Guccio's birth,f the 
invitation sent by Rienzi urgently summon- 
ing the Siennese burgher to come secretly 
to Rome,;}: and lastly, one which the Tribune 
wrote to Guccio, pathetic in its historic 
interest, as bearing date the 7th of October, 
1354, the day preceding that which saw 
Rienzi perish at the hands of the Roman 
rabble.§ 

In 1844 M. Monmerque, a counselor of 
the court royal of Paris, and member of the 
Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles 
Lettres, published in Paris a most valuable 
work, entitled "Dissertation Historique Sur 
Jean Ier, Roi de France et de Navarre." [| 

In this volume, which is now rare, M. 
Monmerque has embodied such portions of 
Chififlet's "Lumina Salica" as relate the 
career of Giannino, and also that part of 
the "Diario Sanese" of Girolamo Gigli, 
containing the results of his researches in 

* Dissertation Historique, p. 30. 

t Appendix I. 

% Appendix II. 

§ Appendix III. 

|| Paris, Chez Tabary, Bouquiniste Editeur, 1844. 

44 



the archives of Siena. The present essay 
owes whatever it has taken upon the testi- 
mony of these two authors to the laborious 
investigations of M. Monmerque, whose 
'■ Historic Dissertation" cannot be charged 
with any bias in favor of Guccio's claim to 
royalty, since the author carefully points 
out whatever discrepancies can be discov- 
ered in the various chronicles relating the 
romantic story. In the -' Dissertation His- 
torique" will also be found the full text of 
the three letters to which reference has just 
been made. Most remarkable of all is the 
preservation of the famous "Charte," or 
parchment of Rienzi.* Written in the 
Gothic Italian chirography of the fourteenth 
century, but couched in mediaeval Latin, 
this document, which originally formed 
part of the archives of Siena, was redis- 
covered about 1843, in a collection of 
ancient manuscripts gathered by a distin- 
guished French antiquarian, M. Lamberty 
of Aix.f In a dignified statement Rienzi 
tells with minute detail the strange story 
which this essay has related, declares that 
he has examined the documents which were 
submitted to him by the monk Antoine, and 
that he is firmly convinced that Guccio's 
title is irrefragable. He closes with the 
prophetic suggestion that death may 

* See Appendix IV. 

t Monmerque, Dissertation Historique, p. 32, 
foot-note. 

45 



speedily overtake himself, and that there- 
fore he has sealed this document with his 
official signet, and placed it in the hands of 
Guccio. 

Singular documentary confirmation was 
supplied quite recently by Professor Carlo 
Mazzi, a distinguished archaeologist of 
Rome.* He relates that he found in the 
Barberini Library a manuscript "having 
the form of an autobiography" of Guccio. 
Thus a scholar of our own period corrobo- 
rates the statement of Jean Jacques Chifflet, 
made more than two hundred years ago, 
that this account of Guccio was based upon 
an autobiography contained in the Barberini 
Library. 

In the course of this research Professor 
Mazzi unearthed a curious document, en- 
titled "The Treasure of a King." f It is 
prefaced with this explanatory title: li An 
accurate inventory of the money and 
articles which Gianni lost in Vignone, 
which were in the custody of a certain 
Daniel, and which Matteo of Gesualdo ap- 
propriated to himself in January, ij6o." 
The list is bewildering in its crowns of 
gold, embroidered robes, splendid gonfalons, 
rich armor, costly jewels, and chests of 
golden ducats. The aggregate of wealth 
represented staggers the imagination. The 

*Nozze Gorrini-Cazzola, Curzio Mazzi, Rome, 
1892. 

"(" II Tesoro di un Re. 

46 



annotations of Professor Mazzi indicate 
that before the final collapse of Guccio' s 
plans, he had accumulated these enormous 
treasures and trappings of royalty, and 
intrusted them to one Daniel, a member of 
that Jewish race to whom the would-be 
monarch had pledged immunity from per- 
secution. But before Guccio himself had 
been arrested, his wealth had been seized 
by the rapacious Seneschal of Provence, 
and the faithful Daniel had preceded his 
master to a prison. 

Loyal to the memory of the prince who 
had honored Siena by a lifelong sojourn, 
the people of that city for two hundred 
years, till the last scion of the line died in 
I530>* bestowed upon the descendants of 
Guccio the distinguishing title "The chil- 
dren of King Gianni." While they lived 
they bore the three lilies of France in the 
midst of the arms of the Baglioni family, 
and in death Siena gave them the high 
honor of burial in the Church of San Dom- 
enico.f 

Thus did Gianni Guccio vanish into the 
darkness of his Neapolitan dungeon. As 
the iron door closed behind him, and the 
jailor's key grated in the rusty lock, they 

*Papencordt's Rienzi, p. 331. Monmerqu6, p. 35. 

tChifflet, Opera, Vol. I., p. 278-282, quoted in 
foot-note by Monmerque, p. 64. Also Papencordt's 
Rienzi, p. 331, 

47 



wrote "Finis" to this strange, pitiful story. 
Was Guccio the descendant of Hugh Capet, 
and of right the King of France? That 
will be known in the dazzling light of the 
day when all secrets shall be revealed. 




4 8 



APPENDICES 



APPENDIX I 

LETTER OF BROTHER ANTOINE 

OF THE ORDER OF THE HERMITS OF ST. 
AUGUSTINE. 

(From the "Dissertation upon John First, King of 
France and Navarre." By M. Monmarque, Paris, 
1845. 

M. Monmarque, in a prefatory note, after certify- 
ing that these documents which were found in the 
Cabinet des Chartes, and subsequently included in 
the Bibliotheque de Roi, have been compared with 
scrupulous care with the originals in the libraries of 
Italy, points out the peculiar arrangement of Brother 
Antoine's letter to Rienzi. Antoine begins the epis- 
tle, then embodies in it the statement of Brother 
Jordan, his superior, which includes the testament 
of the Lady Marie de Picard, or rather her declara- 
tions made upon her dying bed. Then Brother An- 
toine resumes his narrative, and the document is 
finished by Nicholas de Rienzi, who certifies to the 
exactitude of the copy delivered by him to Guccio.) 

To Nicholas Di Rienzi, Tribune of the Roman 
People. Followed by Two Letters of Rienzi, 
Addressed to Giannino of Siena. 

Brother Antoine begins: 

At Porto- Venere, August 25, 1354. Hav- 
ing long known your great renown and the 
excellent fame which you enjoy, and having 
just learned of the latest favor which God has 
accorded you in calling you to the government 
of Rome, an honor due mainly to your wis- 
dom and merit, I have resolved to reveal to 

5i 



you a secret which I have long kept. Now 
that it hath pleased our Lord Jesus Christ to 
raise you to the honor of the command of the 
Romans, it appears to me that it is right to 
inform you, before any other, of the great 
miracle which Jesus Christ is about to mani- 
fest to the world, in causing the discovery of 
one hidden for long years, who is still deprived 
of the insignia of his royal dignity, and to 
whom, nevertheless, it has been reserved to 
restore to Christendom universal peace, and 
to reconquer the Holy Land of Jerusalem. It 
will be easier for you than for any other, as it 
appears to me, to discover the prince whom 
we seek. I write you upon this subject, and 
would gladly wait upon you, were it not for 
the heavy sickness with which it hath pleased 
God that I should be attacked, and under 
which I am near succumbing. Be pleased to 
excuse me, and graciously receive my request 
that you will listen patiently to the statement 
of the purpose of my mission, which I should 
have personally executed had not my illness 
prevented me. I adjure you in the name of 
God that as soon as the object of my embassy 
shall be known to you, you will put in execu- 
tion the commission contained in the following 
letter, which I have taken pains to have trans- 
lated from the vulgar tongue of the French into 
the Tuscan language; and if you shall succeed 
in accomplishing what is asked of you, I have 
this confidence in God that you will never have 
performed an act more pleasing to our Lord, 
more useful to the world, and to the benefit, 
honor, and maintenance of your own sover- 
eignty. Behold the purpose of my mission. 

52 



The Statement of Brother J or dan , a Hermit 
of the Order of St. Augustine. 

There was in the kingdom of France, not 
far from Paris, in the castle of Crecy (Carsi), 
a noble young woman named Marie. She 
was the daughter of the Chevalier Picard, and 
the name of her mother was Eliabel. The 
Lady Marie, who had early lost her father, 
clandestinely married, without informing her 
mother and her brothers, Guccio di Mino, a 
young Tuscan who was living in the vicinity of 
Cr^cy, in a castle known as Neauphle-le-Vieux. 
Guccio represented Spinello Tolomei, his kins- 
man. Having come to Cr^cy in order to enjoy 
the recreation of the chase with the brothers 
of the Lady Marie, Guccio remained several 
days at their chateau, and as he was of a rare 
personal beauty, the Lady Marie became capti- 
vated with him, and having caused him to be 
secretly conducted to her chamber by one of 
the servants, she took him for her husband 
without a word told to any. Guccio pledged 
her his faith, promised her the most profound 
secrecy, and they lived together in such man- 
ner that the Lady Marie became enceinte. No 
sooner had her brothers become cognizant of 
this, than they compelled their sister to give a 
full account of what had occurred. Terrified 
by them, the Lady Marie told how the thing 
had happened. Filled with indignation, the 
brothers of the Lady Marie, as became gentle- 
men, sent a challenge to Guccio, and notified 
him to quit France without delay, threatening 
him with death if he disobeyed their command. 
They were maddened by the thought that 
their sister should have become the spouse of 

53 



a simple citizen of Tuscany. Apprised of all 
this, Guccio, disguised as a pilgrim, came to 
Cre*cy, and having made himself known to a 
female servant, was introduced to the chamber 
of the Lady Marie. Here he was concealed 
for some days, and on leaving he said to his 
young wife: "I am returning to my own land. 
I shall remain there some time, but I shall 
come back to thee." He begged her to have 
the child which she should bring into the world 
secretly put out to nurse, but urged her to 
keep a watchful eye upon the child, adding 
that he himself would act in such a way that 
she and her brothers should have no reason to 
blush for the alliance with him. Departing 
then, he returned to his own country, where 
he dwelt for a long season. 

Meantime the brothers of the Lady Marie, in 
order to protect their honor and to avoid the 
publicity of the affair, conveyed their sister to 
a monastery near Paris, of which the abbess 
was one of their near relatives. To her they 
recounted what had happened, begging her to 
hide their sister in the convent till after her 
confinement, and then to dispose, as she might 
deem best, of the child of the Lady Marie, 
whether it should prove a boy or a girl. They 
took this method because they were upon the 
point of giving their sister in marriage to a 
gentleman of their own neighborhood. 

Whilst the Lady Marie was in this monastery 
it pleased God that she should give birth to a 
son, to whom she gave the name of Giannino. 

The abbess sent the infant to a nurse in the 
vicinity of Cre^cy, named Amalech, giving out 
that the child was one of her nephews. Fate 

54 



decreed that the nurse had hardly left the 
monastery when the Queen of France brought 
forth a male infant, whose birth caused the 
greatest rejoicing in Paris. In accord with the 
custom, the princes of the royal house and the 
lords specially charged with watching over 
the king started inquiries for some noble 
ladies who could act as wet-nurses to the royal 
child, and the result of their search was, that 
information reached them that in a monastery, 
which was indicated, a noble lady, young and 
beautiful, had recently given birth to a babe. 
The Lady Marie was not able to tell me how 
this fact became known to the court. Then 
the gentlemen of the royal guard, accompanied 
by the physicians, as was the usage, came to 
the monastery. The abbess declared that the 
person whom they were seeking was not in the 
convent, but as they had been positively assured 
that a lady but lately delivered of a child was 
in that house, they searched everywhere, and 
having found the Lady Marie, they compelled 
the abbess upon oath to declare whether this 
young lady fulfilled the requirements. The 
abbess, who was aware that the truth would 
finally come out, told them, weeping, the con- 
dition and circumstances of the Lady Marie, 
pleading with them to leave her in the convent, 
and fix their choice upon some other person, 
because such an exposure could not but occa- 
sion prejudice against both the Lady Marie 
and the monastery. Forced by the necessities 
of the royal infant, the lords, after having con- 
sulted the physicians, decided that the son of 
the king should be nursed at the breast of the 
Lady Marie, and therefore the young king was 

55 



confided to her. Meanwhile the woman who 
was nursing Giannino, the child of the Lady 
Marie, occupied a couch in the same chamber, 
and it happened during the night that Gian- 
nino was found dead at the side of his nurse. 
The two women were then alone; the Lady 
Marie caused her own dead child to be placed 
beside herself, while she consigned to Amalech 
the living son of the king, and by promises 
and threats she obliged the woman to become 
her accomplice in this deception. As soon as 
day appeared the Lady Marie manifested the 
deepest sorrow that ever woman experienced, 
for she had an intense love for her child. 
Nevertheless, by her cries and lamentations 
she made it to be understood that it was for 
the son of the king that she wept. The lords 
of the royal guard, the knights and ladies of 
the palace, hurried to respond to the cries of 
the Lady Marie, and finding her holding a 
dead infant in her arms, they never doubted 
that this was the king's son, and they, too, 
were dissolved in tears. The dead infant was 
buried, and Marie had the son of the king 
nursed, as though he had been her own, by the 
woman Amalech. She did this not so much 
through affection for the child as on account 
of her love for Guccio. "For," she said, "if 
Guccio ever returns from his own country and 
finds that his son is dead, he will have no love 
for me, and I shall have lost at the same time 
honor, my son, and my husband." 

Several years passed, and Guccio returned to 
his own country. The brothers of the Lady 
Marie, in the service of the king, and intrusted 
by him with the ward of certain crown-lands, 

56 



had gone by his orders to a distant province 
removed by many days' journey from Paris. 
Guccio, having learned this, came secretly to 
Cr^cy. There he found the Lady Marie, and 
with her the son of the king, who was very 
beautiful and now of the age of six years. 
"Who is this child?" asked Guccio. "He is 
thy son," was the reply of the Lady Marie. 
With this Guccio was delighted. He remained 
some days at Cr^cy, and said to Marie when 
he was departing, "Have this child sent to me 
at Paris." Marie waited a while to have the 
boy taken to Guccio; and at once on his 
arrival, Guccio had him taken to Italy, and 
Marie never again saw Giannino. 

A long time after, in accord with God's 
will, the Lady Marie died, but before her 
death she sent for me, Brother Jordan, hermit 
of the convent situated near Cre*cy. She 
made to me her general confession, and after 
having recounted the events above given, she 
laid upon me the obligation to seek the child, 
and if I should find him still living, immedi- 
ately to inform the Pope of it, as well as the 
sacred college, and whatever king of France 
should be upon the throne, and to give all the 
facts calculated to re-establish the prince in 
his royal dignity. 

After the death of the Lady Marie, not 
knowing what I should do, I made inquiry as 
to the fate of Guccio, and learned that he was 
no longer living, but I was unable to push my 
investigations further. For several years I 
remained plunged in deep melancholy, which 
nothing seemed to overcome. I did not like 
to carry such news to the Pope, nor to the 

57 



king, and besides, I did not know where in the 
world I could find the son of King Louis X. 
Remembering that the majority of men die 
before they reach eight and forty, it seemed 
to me likely that the prince was dead. For 
many nights I was buried in these painful re- 
flections, when at last I had a vision, in which 
I seemed to see the son of the king on his 
knees at the feet of his father, and thought 
that I heard him say, "Father, give me thy 
blessing, for I long to march to the conquest 
of the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus Christ." 
Whenever I fell asleep I at once saw the 
young prince before his father in an attitude 
of respect. Every night this vision came to 
me, and I knew not what to decide. I set 
myself to praying, and pleaded with our Lord 
Jesus Christ to reveal to me the way to dis- 
cover the son of the king. I passed many days 
in continual orisons, accompanied with fast- 
ings and abundant tears. At length, being on 
my knees at the foot of my altar, I yielded to 
sleep, and this same son of the king appeared 
to me in a dream. He held in his hand an 
ensign with the arms of the church, and he 
seemed to me to say, "I shall never stop 
short of placing this banner on the gates of 
Jerusalem. The sepulchre of Jesus Christ 
must be rescued and delivered from the yoke 
of the Saracens, so that every faithful Christian 
can visit the holy places without danger." 
Waking from this vision, I rose, believing that 
I should find the prince in the neighboring 
region, but failing to find him there, I was 
again overwhelmed with sadness. I sought 
advice of some of the friends of God, and they 

58 



counseled, "Thou art old and can only walk 
with difficulty; send some one from country to 
country, even to Rome. Put in his hands the 
confession of the Lady Marie, and the account 
of the revelation made to thee long since, in 
order that thy messenger, thoroughly informed 
of the whole matter, may present himself to 
the bishops and lords of the country, to learn 
from them if the prince is still living, and if he 
be yet living, to beg the bishop or the lord of 
the land where he dwells to report the fact at 
once to the Pope, his cardinals, and the king 
of France now reigning, as well as his barons. 
If it be impossible to discover the prince, thou 
wilt have freed thy conscience toward God, 
and thou shalt speak of all this to no one, lest 
some trouble be caused to thyself in having 
kept so long so important a secret." 

The Brother Jordan addresses himself di- 
rectly to the Brother Antoine, 

So, my dear Brother Antoine, I pray thee, 
in the name of God, to repair to Rome, and 
to inform thyself what has become of Guccio 
di Mino. Thou canst not fail to secure some 
tidings of him through Spinello Tolomei. 
This investigation will be the easier for thee, 
because having been several times in Rome, 
thou knowest all the countries to be traversed. 
Thus have I confidence that by Divine inter- 
vention thou shalt find the prince who is to 
establish universal peace in Christendom, and 
to reconquer the Holy Land. I beseech thee — 
nay, I command thee, in virtue of the oath of 
obedience — to go from country to country, 
even to Rome, to seek the lost prince, and to 

59 



do all to find him again. Happy the country 
in which shall have been reared this sacred son 
of our king! Make every effort that he shall 
speedily return. Would that I might receive 
the news before I die ! Haste then to return 
to me, and urge, as from God himself, the 
bishop or the lord of the land where the prince 
lives, that the Pope be immediately informed 
of him, in order that the son of the king may 
be established in his royal dignity, and that 
the will of God may be accomplished in the 
matters which I have explained to thee. Thou 
knowest that the son of the king is called 
Giannino, after the name of the son of the 
Lady Marie. I do not know the name actu- 
ally given to the son of the king, the Lady 
Marie not having been able to tell me. So 
he, to search for whom I send thee, is known 
as Giannino di Guccio, and he doubtless re- 
gards himself as the son of Guccio. 

The Brother Antoine continues: 

Such is the mission confided to me by Brother 
Jordan. Be pleased, in the name of God, to 
accomplish it without delay! It was imposed 
upon the Brother Jordan himself in confession 
by the Lady Marie in the year one thousand 
three hundred and forty-five, and she told him 
that the son of the king should then be about 
twenty-six or twenty-five years of age. 
Antoine, 
Her7iiit and disciple of the afore- 
said Brother Jorda?i. 

P. S. — I bear you witness that the Brother 
Jordan is one of the holiest men in the world. 
It is more than eighty years since he was con- 

60 



secrated to the service of God in our monastery. 
Hardly was he twelve years old when he began 
to do penance. Hence I believe, and I have 
confidence in God that through his prayers, you 
will accomplish the mission with which I charge 
you in his behalf. I pray the Lord that thus 
it may be ! 

Given at Porto-Venere, where I am de- 
tained by sickness, Monday, the twenty-fifth 
day of the month of August, 1354, the fete of 
St. Louis, King of France, who several times 
made the voyage beyond seas. He whom I 
seek is one of his descendants, and he will 
follow his example. 

Nicolas di Rienzi continues: 

We, Nicolas, Knight of the Roman people 
by the authority of the apostolic Holy Seat, 
Illustrious Senator, Syndic, Captain, and 
Defender of the Holy City, have had the pre- 
ceding letter transcribed, which was sent and 
was placed in our hands on the sixth day of 
September, in the year 1354, for the manifesta- 
tion of the glory of the son of the king. This 
prince is in fact truly the legitimate King of 
France, as is witnessed not only by the confes- 
sion of the lady contained in the aforesaid 
letter, but by the age that the prince should 
be of at the present date, and also by what we 
were informed of when we were in the city of 
Avignon, near our lord the Pope. It is thus 
demonstrated that he is certainly the son of 
King Louis, the first-born of King Philip the 
Fair, who had for his wife Clemence, daughter 
of Charles Martel, king of Hungary, who was 
the mother of the aforesaid prince. So when 

61 



the aforesaid letter was presented to us, 
we reflected, and are convinced that Divine 
Providence alone has brought this to pass. 
Therefore we have taken great pains to have 
the prince sought out, and God has given us 
the favor to make the discovery. We have 
learned that he was reared in the city of Siena; 
and before making him acquainted with the 
foregoing facts we called him before us, and 
he appeared in our presence on Thursday, 
the second of October of the aforesaid year. 
And, because we are aware that our estate is 
menaced by a great danger, in order that this 
prince, king and son of a king, may not perish, 
and that he may be able to be re-established in 
his royal dignity, we have caused the above- 
mentioned letter to be transcribed, and a copy 
of it, sealed with the seal bearing our arms, to 
be placed in his hands, to serve him as an 
authority, and to enlighten any one who may 
desire to assist in his great enterprise; for 
which cause we pray our gracious Lord Jesus 
Christ that he will accord us the grace to live 
long enough to behold this great justice ren- 
dered to the world! 



62 



APPENDIX II 

A LETTER OF NICOLAS DI RIENZI 
TO GIANNINO 

(From the "Historic Dissertation upon John I., 
King of France and Navarre." By M. Monmerque, 
Paris, 1845.) 

At the Capitol, the 1 8th of September, 1354. 

To the noble and wise Jannino di Guccio di 
Mini, our very dear friend, citizen of Siena. 

We have charged our envoys to discover the 
place where you are, and to ask, on our behalf, 
that it may not be displeasing to you to appear 
at Rome and in our presence. It was reported 
to us by our servitor that having met you in 
Siena, he discharged our commission, but 
being the bearer of no writing emanating from 
us, you did not put confidence in his words. 
In our ignorance of the place and the time at 
which you could be found, we did not intrust 
him with letters. Now that we know where 
you are, we ask that it may please you, on 
seeing these presents, to come to us at Rome 
without delay and in the most secret manner. 
We have written this letter, to which we have 
caused our seal to be affixed, in order that it 
may inspire you with faith in all that our mes- 
senger shall say on our behalf. 

63 



Given at the Capitol, the eighteenth day of 
September, 1354. 

Nicolas, 
Knight of the Roman people, by 
the authority of the apostolic 
Holy Seat, Illustrious Senator, 
Syndic, Captain, and Defender 
of the Holy City. 



64 



APPENDIX III 

A LETTER OF NICOLAS DI RIENZI 
TO GIANNINO 

(From the "Historic Dissertation upon John I., 
King of France and Navarre." By M. Monmarque, 
Paris, 1845.) 

At the Capitol, the 7th of October, 1354. 

To Gianni di Guccio, of the city of Siena, an 
officer of our house, being at present at 
Montefiascone, at Orvieto, or at Arezzo, 
very noble Prince, King of high excel- 
lency, superior to all the other kings of 
Christendom, known of God alone, and un- 
known to the world on account of evil 
practices committed against you at the 
moment of your birth by those who would 
have been dependent upon you for honor 
and even for existence, had they been 
given the knowledge of the truth. 

Noble Prince, we sent you to the legate, our 
friend, that while remaining unknown, you 
might be able to assist us by asking him to 
send his army against those rebelling against 
the Holy Church, the Roman people, and the 
authority which God has placed in our hands, 
against the enemies of the Holy Church of the 
people of Rome, and of the dignity which we 
hold from the hand of God. We address this 

65 



letter to you as to a person of our house, in 
order that none may know that you are dealing 
with the legate in relation to the succor we 
have asked ; for we are well aware that numer- 
ous plots are being woven in Rome against the 
Holy Church, the Roman people, and our own 
authority. We have sent you letters contain- 
ing the details of these, that you may lay them 
before the legate, and that we may thus know 
what you have been able to secure from him. 
We learn just now that intrigues are formed 
against us, so daring, even in Rome itself, that 
it appears that there is no safety for us to be 
hoped for, should the aid of the Holy Church 
be delayed. Nevertheless, we beseech you 
that for the present you will in no way try to 
come to us; but on the contrary, that you 
withdraw yourself into some safe place until 
you have received from us a notice enabling 
you to decide upon your course. We pray 
you to abide in peace, and not to be appalled 
by anything which may happen, for, with the 
permission of God, you will soon be re-estab- 
lished in your royal dignity, and we have firm 
confidence that God will send before you some 
one who will replace you in your seignory. If 
in the superscription of this letter we do not 
use such titles of honor as become you, pardon 
us. The circumstances which do not allow 
you to be known will be our excuse, for our 
main purpose is to assure your tranquillity, and 
seeing that we are not able to hope to save our 
own person, we write what we had hoped later 
to reveal to you ourselves, namely, that you 
are the veritable King of France, and the 
legitimate son of Philip the Fair, and that 

66 



your mother was the Queen Clemence, daugh- 
ter of Charles Martel; that you received with 
the water of baptism the name of John. Do 
not lose courage, for in a little while you will 
be lord and King of France, and we affirm, 
every dweller in that kingdom will become 
your subject. 

Given at the Capitol, the seventh day of 
October, thirteen hundred and fifty- four. 
Nicolas, 
Knight of the Roman people, by 
the authority of the apostolic 
Holy Seat, Illustrious Senator, 
Syndic, and Captain of the Holy 
City. 



67 



APPENDIX IV 

TRANSLATION OF RIENZPS CHARTE 

Testimony of Cola di Rienzo as to the preten- 
sions of Gianni de Guccio of Siena to the 
crown of France. History of Sigismund 
Titius of Siena, T. II. , fol. 218. 

In the name of Christ, Amen. This is the 
mode and tenor of the declaration compiled 
from all sources as to the fact that at the time 
of his birth the son of King Louis and Queen 
Clementia was secretly exchanged for another. 
The said King Louis was the son of King 
Philip, called El bello, who had three sons and 
one daughter. This daughter was named Isa- 
bella, and was the wife of the King of England 
and mother of that King Edward who has 
made and still makes such war against the 
French. The names of the sons were these: 
first was Louis, the second Philip the Long, 
the third was called Charles. Each one of 
these was in turn crowned King of France (the 
crown descending from the one to the other), 
and died without leaving male issue, unless it 
be that changeling son of King Louis, of whom 
you are to hear. And afterwards Lord Philip 
of Valois was crowned King of the French, 
because it was believed that that son of the 
king so changed had died. The aforesaid 
King Louis had two wives. The first was 

6S 



daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, and had a 
daughter who became wife of the King of 
Navarre. She had three sons, the first called 
Charles, the second Philip, the third Louis. 
The second wife of the said King Louis of the 
French was the aforesaid dementia, a descend- 
ant of Charles, called Martel, who was 
descended from the royal house of Apulia. 
On the death of King Louis his widow, the 
Queen Clement, was left pregnant by him. 
Then it was arranged that the aforesaid Lord 
Philip the Long, brother of the deceased King 
Louis, should wear the crown of the King of 
France until the Queen should be delivered. 
And if she should bear a son, he should hold 
the kingdom for him until he should come of 
such age as to know how to rule and govern. 
And if it were a daughter, the aforesaid Philip 
should be crowned lawful King of France, 
because a woman could not succeed to the 
throne. 

At that time this Lord Philip had for a wife 
the daughter of the Countess of Artois, who 
then was a greater lady than any other in all 
France. Moreover, when King Louis died his 
Queen, Clementia, was left pregnant by him. 

Then it was arranged, with the consent of 
Lord Philip the Long, and Lord Charles, and 
the other barons, that two barons, men ancient, 
wise, honorable, and more faithful to the 
crown of France than any others in the king- 
dom, should be chosen for this purpose, that 
they with their wives might always be near 
Queen Clement, and might have a special care 
of her and of the boy who should be born; 
with this end in view, that no deception might 

69 



be possible with regard to the crown, and that 
no one might be able to say, if it were a boy, 
that it was a girl, and vice versa, and that if 
he were living he might not be declared dead, 
and vice versa, so that in no way could any 
fraud be worked, and that the crown might be 
his whose it rightly was. 

With matters so arranged, the Queen Cle- 
ment, a widow and pregnant, vowed to St. 
John Baptist that if she should bear a son she 
would name him John in honor of him. And 
as it pleased God, she bore a son, whom she 
called John. The aforesaid Countess of Artois 
held him at the time of his baptism, and she, 
being jealous of the child, desired his death, 
and for this reason, that the aforesaid Lord 
Philip the Long might be crowned lawful 
King of France. And a rumor was set in 
motion by the countess that the boy was not 
vigorous, and would survive but a few days. 
And she did this with the intention that the 
boy might be slain secretly; and that when he 
died after the propagation of such a rumor, 
she might be clear of his death. 

At that time those two barons who were in 
charge of the queen and the boy who had been 
born made inquiry for noble ladies by whom he 
might be nursed. And among other noble 
ladies who were found for nursing the said 
young king there was a certain lady found in a 
monastery. Her name was Lady Mary, and 
she was the daughter of a certain Lord Picard 
of Carsi (Cr£cy). And at the time when 
Queen Clement bore her son Lady Mary bore 
a son also. His father was a certain Tuscan 
who was called Guccio Mini, a youth of about 

70 



twenty. He was transacting business at a 
certain castle called Nefolle de Vecchio, near 
to the castle of Carsi. And he was stationed 
there on behalf of a relative who was called 
Spinellus de Tolomeis. Guccio was intimate 
with the two brothers of the aforesaid Lady 
Mary, one of whom was called Peter, the other 
Jannoctus. And they often hunted and fowled 
together, and were so familiar that they kept 
no watch on Guccio, whom they looked upon 
as a brother. And while things were in this 
condition, so far as the two brothers were con- 
cerned, Guccio fell in love with the sister, and 
she with him. She was about fifteen years of 
age. And through the connivance of a maid- 
servant, and without the knowledge of her 
mother, who was called Lady Eliabel, and of 
her brothers (her father was dead), he brought 
it about that she accepted him in marriage, 
and he gave her a ring, and had intercourse 
with her so that she became pregnant. And 
when the time came that her pregnancy could 
no longer be hidden, her mother and brothers 
tried to learn from her how it came about. 
Then the lady, in fear of them, and with great 
shame, told the whole affair. But they being 
incensed at Guccio, caused him to be told to 
leave the country, and in order to conceal their 
disgrace they sent the Lady Mary to Paris to 
a monastery of noble ladies, whose abbess was 
a connection of theirs. Here they asked to 
retain their sister until she should be delivered, 
and to hold such a course with regard to the 
child, boy or girl, as should seem best to her 
in order that no mention might be made of it. 
This they did because they considered her 

7i 



promised to a certain nobleman of their own 
country. The said lady, remaining in the 
convent, bore a son whom she called Janninus. 
When her son was born, as we have said, 
those barons who had been assigned to the 
charge of the new-born child of Queen 
Clement, arranged that secretly by night the 
Lady Mary should be brought from the con- 
vent and conducted to the royal palace and the 
chamber of the queen. There the said Lady 
Mary remained and cared for the son of the 
king, himself king. 

The barons and soldiers of France were 
greatly elated at the birth of their sovereign. 
And then it was ordered that after ten or 
twelve days the boy should be shown to his 
barons and the other noble soldiers of the king- 
dom, in order that they might do him such 
reverence as befitted their lord king. The 
Countess of Artois sought as a special favor 
from Queen Clement that she might be 
allowed to hold him in her arms. And this was 
granted her. The aforesaid barons who had 
been put in charge of the boy, fearing that the 
Countess of Artois, while holding the child, 
would find some way of killing him, because 
they knew and weighed well her evil dispo- 
sition toward the boy, made arrangements that 
on that day on which the boy was to be 
shown, the son of Guccio and the Lady Mary 
should be dressed in the proper royal robes, 
and with the crown placed on his head should 
be shown instead of the king. All this was 
done so if any evil were perpetrated it might 
be wrought upon him, and not upon the royal 
child; and so it came to pass. Whence it 

72 



happened that on the night following the day 
of his exhibition, the son of Guccio died. 
Then some said that the Countess of Artois 
was the cause of it by squeezing him when he 
was showed to the people. Others said that 
she placed poison upon his tongue. What- 
ever way it was done, at any rate the boy died. 
The barons, who were anxious to see what 
became of the child, when they saw that he 
was dead, said to each other, Now we see 
clearly and plainly the evil purpose of the 
Countess of Artois and of the Lord Philip, 
because they think that they have certainly 
killed our sovereign. But by the grace of 
God they accomplished their design not in the 
least. Therefore, let us find a way by which 
the boy king may escape. And they went to 
the Lady Mary, telling her how her son was 
dead, giving her an account of the manner of 
it, and the reason why they did as they did. 
Whereupon the lady began to weep and lament 
bitterly, thinking that her son was dead. But 
the barons comforted her concerning him, say- 
ing to her, You are a youthful lady, and will be 
able hereafter to have many sons. We wish 
you to declare that it is the true son of the 
king who is dead, and not yours, in order that 
this one, your lord and ours, may escape the 
peril of death; and we wish you to conceal 
him as secretly as possible, as if he were your 
own child, until such time as we tell you he is 
to be manifested. And by reason of all this 
you will be able to become a greater lady than 
any in the land, and to place in fine condition 
all your relatives and the ancestral estate. 
And if it should happen that this boy, our 

73 



lord, should die as your boy has done, you will 
have lost both your own son and your and our 
lord, and we shall all be in peril of our lives. 
The lady, hearing their words, and not wishing 
to do otherwise, consented to their will, and 
pretended that her weeping was for the dead 
child of the king. The barons and the whole 
court, hearing of the death of the king, were in 
universal grief. They did not, however, in- 
quire too closely into the cause of his death. 
Because those who ought to have inquired 
were the ones who desired his death, and so 
they were believed to have brought it about — 
the Lord Philip and the countess. The Queen 
was still in bed, weak from her parturition, and 
was not able to learn any more concerning the 
matter than was told her. For she believed 
truly that it was her son who had died. And 
she is said to have lived a long time after this 
event in great state. But not on that account 
did the Lady Mary and those barons ever tell 
either to her or to any other person what had 
occurred, because of their fear of those who 
were reigning and who had ruled since the 
changing had been accomplished. Finally the 
son of Guccio was buried in the place of 
the king's son with great honors, and a statue 
was placed over him as king. Afterwards 
those two barons, for the sake of the advan- 
tage and the preservation of the life of the boy 
king, introduced the Lady Mary again into the 
convent by the same means as they had 
brought her out, with the son of the king, she 
saying that he was her own child. After this 
she withdrew from the convent and returned 
to Carsi with the boy, and settled down with 

74 



her brothers. She did not marry again, and 
Guccio took no other wife. And when the 
boy was nine or ten years of age, Guccio, who 
was in Paris, sent for him, believing him to 
be his own son, and wishing to keep him in 
Paris a few days. The Lady Mary, not sup- 
posing that Guccio would remove him to other 
regions, sent him. After this Guccio sent 
him to his own country, Wherefore the Lady 
Mary never saw him again, and always was in 
great fear on his account. And by reason of 
her fear of those who were reigning, she said 
nothing to any one until she came to her death, 
the said Lady Mary remaining in great fear 
lest the boy should die or be sent to parts 
where he could not be found. And having 
lived a holy and honorable life, she died, as it 
pleased God. Before she died she sent for 
me, Father Jordanus, of Spain, of the order 
of the hermits of St. Augustine. I had been 
sent into a place of our order close to Carsi. 
And to me the Lady Mary made her general 
confession, and in it she declared the whole 
matter in order, in the month of June, 1345, 
in which month and year she died, and was 
buried at the aforesaid our house. Before her 
death she had desired of me that I would 
make inquiry about the boy who, she said, was 
then about twenty-six or twenty-eight years 
old. And if I found him I was to declare the 
whole thing to him, that he might know what 
he was, and how the crown of a kingdom was 
rightfully his. After the death of the afore- 
said lady I sought to find out what I could 
about that Guccio: I thought if I could find 
him I should be able easily to find him whom 

75 



he called his son. Then I found that the 
aforesaid Guccio had died at Celone in Cam- 
pania in the year 1340. 

But because I feared Lord Philip of Valois, 
who was then reigning, I remained quiet for 
several years, filled with many melancholy re- 
flections about those matters which I had in 
charge. Conscience accused me, because I 
did not search for the boy; fear of those in 
power terrified me, and so I allowed that 
which I ought to make inquiry into to pass 
along, for I greatly feared lest some scandal or 
harm should come to our order, however little 
I cared for my own person, since I am come 
to such years that I expect to live but a short 
time. Matters being in such a state, I dis- 
missed my imaginings, and determined in my 
own mind rather to put myself and my order 
in peril than that so great and so deserving a 
prince should perish, and the royal house of 
France be in perpetual servitude and be de- 
prived of its legitimate and natural lord through 
so great a deception practiced upon him; all 
which had been possible because those who 
committed the fraud held such high position. 
Nevertheless, all these things were connived 
at, and he went forth poor and destitute, and 
deprived of all his nobility so far as external ap- 
pearance is concerned. Since this, the kingdom 
of France, after he had been surreptitiously 
changed, never has been free from great pesti- 
lence, and has been troubled by wars, divisions, 
and contentions between fellow-countrymen. 
To this end, therefore, that God may put an 
end to so many heavy miseries of the French 
and to the poverty and calamitous state of such, 

76 



and so great a prince as is the natural and 
true King of France, so that the world also 
may be set in order and disposed in the way 
of God; I set and determined myself to search 
for him on account of whom I am certain that 
at such a time God has not hidden him unless 
it may be in order to manifest him in His own 
time so that he may establish universal order 
and peace in the world, and that the sacred 
land of Jerusalem beyond sea may by him be 
recovered; and so I believe that it will be. 
But because, while I still live, I am neverthe- 
less very old, and it is a very severe task for 
me to travel about, I have commissioned 
Brother Antonius, of France, of our order, a 
man of great sanctity, who had often been at 
Rome, to go forth and to inquire concerning 
that king and to declare to him the whole 
matter. To this Brother Antonius I gave a 
copy of the testament of the above Lady 
Mary, in so far as that copy pertains to the 
matter in hand. The aforesaid father departed 
from our house at Carsi in July, 1354. He 
went forth, and in the prosecution of his 
search as wisely and skilfully as possible he 
betook himself to Italy, to a port which is 
called Venere. And there it pleased God that 
he should become very sick, and believing that 
he was to die, he was afflicted with great grief 
because he had not yet found out the truth, 
and did not know to whom he could transfer 
this charge, who would be earnest about it and 
willing to execute it. And because he feared 
that he would die before the truth should be 
discovered, and because he knew that Lord 
Nicholas, Tribune of the Romans, had newly 

77 LofC. 



entered Rome, and he had heard that he was of 
great sense and spirit, he determined to notify 
him, and to set the whole matter forth in order 
in writing, which thing he did. 

And we, Nicholas, Knight of the Roman 
people, through the apostolic chair, Senator of 
the Holy State, Illustrious Syndic, Captain 
and Defender, after we had possession of the 
aforesaid letter, which we received on the 6th 
of September, 1354, and had made answer to 
Brother Antonius, and had understood all 
things which were contained in that letter, and 
had given credence to the aforesaid statements, 
and because we have so heard by report that 
by the judgment of God, as it appears, there 
have been for a long time in France great 
wars, and many other distresses, which we 
believe God has sent on account of the deceit 
practiced toward and against Him, and on 
account of the sending forth of this one to live 
in so great lowliness and poverty; therefore 
we have given our earnest endeavor to search- 
ing him out as secretly and subtlely as we 
were able, and have found that there had been 
reared in Siena one who had been called 
Janninus Guccio. And he really believed that 
he was the son of Guccio. This Janninus pre- 
sented himself to us on the fifth Feria on the 
second of October, 1354. And before we 
said anything to him about this business we 
examined him concerning himself, his con- 
dition, and his name; whose son he was; 
where he was born; and with regard to all 
things which relate to the aforesaid matter. 
Then we discovered that in his narration he 
rightly declared in accordance with the contents 

78 



of the letter. When this was manifest we 
with great reverence declared to him the whole 
matter. But because we perceived that a dis- 
turbance hostile to us was made in Rome, and 
fearing that we might perish before we could 
give care and attention to the recovery of his 
kingdom, we have caused the whole letter to 
be copied, which we have given under our 
hand on the Sabbath, the 4th of October, in 
the year 1354, sealed with our seal of the 
great star with the eight small stars surround- 
ing it (in this seal in the midst is a certain 
rotundity in which are the arms of the Holy 
Church and of the Roman people), for the sake 
of the greater security of its truth. 

And may this become known to all the 
faithful. 

Asking our most holy and gracious Lord 
Jesus Christ to give us grace that we may live 
to such time that we may see this great act of 
justice accomplished in the world, Amen. 

(That this parchment was secured by the 
seal, the perforations in the still existing end 
of the leaf show, so that no one ought to 
doubt that it is the same which the Senator 
caused to be written and secured with the seal, 
since it smacks of antiquity, and the credence 
that has been given to writing of this sort in 
general.) 



79 



APPENDIX V 

DOCUMENTS RELATIVE TO GIANNI, 

AND HIS PRETENSIONS TO 

THE CROWN OF FRANCE 

(Archives of the Reformation of Siena. Tome 
199 of the Council of the Campana for the years 
1357-1385, P. 41.) 

In the name of the Lord, Amen. In the 
year of our Lord, the 1359th from his incar- 
nation, the ninth indiction, the 22d day of 
October. 

Whereas, on the 1 8th day of October, on 
which, according to the form of the statutes 
and ordinances of the Siennese and the mode 
heretofore observed by our noble Lord Dilianus 
de Panciatichis de Pistorio, the present honor- 
able chief of the Commonwealth of Siena, we 
were in the General Council of the Bell of the 
said commonwealth of Siena, there had been 
drawn out of the chest and the box existing in 
the chest, in which are described those who 
ought in the time to come to hold the office of 
the twelve lords administrators and governors 
of the commonwealth and people of the State 
of Siena, for the said office of the twelve 
lords and for the two months, namely, Novem- 
ber and December, next approaching, a ball of 
wax, on which was folded a small sheet of 
parchment; and on this were found written, 

80 



as I, the Notary of the Reformation, sub- 
scribed, read, twelve names, which are these, 
viz.: Dynus Syni, shoemaker, Macza Ducci, 
shopkeeper, Franciscus Nicolai Nini and 
Guidoccius Francisci Guidarelli, of the state 
section, Fatius Chesis, silk merchant, Jacobus 
Cecchi Nannis, campsor,* Joannes Bracci, 
linen merchant, and Riccius Pericciuoli, baker, 
of the section of St. Martin, Master Domini- 
chus Vannis, Janninus Gucci, wool dealer, 
Lippus Vannus Sellaius, Jacopus Marcovaldi, 
of the section of Camollia; and whereas, 
among these twelve names so drawn forth for 
the said office of the twelve lords and for the 
aforesaid two months, was found, as is plainly 
shown, the name of Janninus, the wool mer- 
chant, of the section of Camollia; and 
whereas, it was asserted by several at the time 
in the aforesaid Council that that Janninus 
was exempt from the above-mentioned office 
because it is alleged and reported that that 
Janninus of right succeeds and ought to be the 
King of France, being born of the royal stock; 
and because it so appears to be true by the 
narration, declaration, and assertion, which is 
made and appears in certain letters written 
upon parchment with a round seal pendent 
therefrom (in circumference about the size, 
perhaps, of a golden florin) — this seal being 
of white wax, and red within, and in that red 
portion marked with the arms of Hungary, 
lilies and rods crossed upon a shield with a 
crest, and letters around the white wax border 
reading, S. SERE. LODOVICI. REG, which 

*A corrupt Latin word signifying a money- 
changer. 

81 



document was presented to the board of the 
twelve lords, and to the captain of the people, 
and to the banner-bearer of justice of the state 
of Siena, and on the part of the most serene 
prince and lord, the King of Hungary, seemed 
to be directed to all kings, prelates, princes, 
dukes, counts, barons, and estates and powers, 
to whom or which it may come, and whose 
tenor is below described; and whereas, more- 
over, to-day, in the said General Council of 
the Bell of the Commonwealth of Siena, 
assembled in the usual palace of the said com- 
monwealth, at the sound of the bell and the 
voice of the herald, as is the custom, in accord- 
ance with the mandate of the lord chief, and in 
sufficient numbers according to the form of 
the statutes; in which council there were 
present two hundred and seven counselors, in 
the presence of the said lord chief, and of the 
twelve lords, and of the captain of the people, 
and of the banner-bearer of justice of the said 
Commonwealth of Siena, in behalf of those 
presiding in office, and of the whole council 
aforesaid, this document was by me the below- 
signed notary of the Reformation, read and 
declared publicy, openly, and in a loud voice 
in the vulgar tongue so as to be understood; 
and moreover, when in the said council it has 
to-day been made perfectly clear by one of the 
said twelve lords presiding in office in behalf 
of the others of the twelve lords in the said 
council of the aforesaid, that in the presence 
of these same twelve lords and the captain of 
the people presiding in office after the above- 
mentioned drawing of the above-named twelve 
lords was made, it has been said, asserted, and 

82 



affirmed by the same Janninus to-day called 
Lord John, that although he has in times past 
been reputed, held, and considered to be Janni- 
nus Guccio of Siena, nevertheless in truth he 
is Lord John, the son of the most serene prince 
and lord, Louis, formerly King of France, and 
of the most noble Queen Clementia, and so of 
the royal stock, and of right succeeding to the 
said kingdom of France, and that he was sub- 
stituted by another and was transferred to the 
parts of Tuscany, as is contained in the tenor 
of the below -written letter: Therefore, since 
the said Janninus, now called Lord Johannes, 
was unwilling, as was asserted and declared, 
to say that he was Janninus Guccio, the wool 
merchant of Siena, and as such Janninus to 
hold the office aforesaid, although in time past 
he had been held and reputed to be such Janni- 
nus Guccio of Siena, but that he was in truth 
the son of the said former King of France, 
and in consequence of the royal stock, and of 
right succeeding, as soldier and civilian, to the 
kingdom of France by reason of his own and 
his paternal origin, and so in accordance with 
the form of the statutes of Siena could not 
be one of the twelve lords, as the aforesaid 
lord chief declared the aforesaid exemption, in 
accordance with the said laws, he drew forth 
from the box containing the names of those of 
the section of Camollia, separated from the 
others, in the place of the said Janninus 
Guccio, now called Lord Johannes, another 
sheet on which was found written the name, 
to wit, of Janninus Guccio; and this sheet, in 
accordance with laws above named, and by 
order of the said twelve lords and the captain 

83 



of the people and the said lord chief, was torn 
into pieces. And he drew out another on 
which was written, to wit, Grifus Locti. 

The tenor of the said letters, of which men- 
tion is made above, is as follows, to wit: 

To all Kings, Prelates, Princes, Dukes and 
Counts, Barons, States and Rulers of the same, 
all of whom are appointed of God, greeting 
and sincere affection. Since now the sun has 
shone upon us which was formerly in cloud, 
and there has been kindled a fire of wonderful 
clearness and truth, therefore it is determined 
that it is worthy and agreeable to right reason, 
that where we know how to lend aid there also 
we render effective service. Hence it is that 
Lord Johanninus, called the son of Guccio, 
reared in the state of Siena, a man noble and 
of the royal race of our own progenitors, being 
the son of the most serene prince, Lord Louis, 
King of the French, and of Queen dementia 
of blessed memory, after due consideration 
turned his steps to the regions of our kingdom 
of Hungary, and, coming to us, proved by 
many authentic instruments and writings that 
the crown of France is his by right; and in 
these writings we see it clearly set forth that 
the noble lady, the Countess to wit, of Artois, 
and Lord Philip the Long, her son-in-law, 
uncle of the said Lord Johannes, in order that 
he (Lord Philip) might the more easily reign 
in the kingdom of France, a few days after the 
birth of the said Lord Johannes, purposed 
murder and death against him; but by Divine 
Providence, and by the aid and counsel of his 
nurse, he was exchanged for another through 
certain deceptions, and another boy being ex- 

84 



hibited in his stead, she, fleeing after the 
manner of the secret sojourn of the Virgin 
Mary in Egypt, concealing him, and pretend- 
ing that the boy had been taken away by the 
will of the Highest, carefully preserved his 
life, for which another perished. And also 
noble Seigniors, to wit, greater barons and 
baronnesses of our kingdom, who after the 
death of the said Lord Louis, King of France, 
had been sent by the Most Serene Lord 
Charles of pious memory, our father, to visit 
the aforesaid Queen, Lady Clementia, his 
sister, bear their testimony to the truth of this 
thing, also seeing the said Lord Johannes and 
causing a comparison to be made before us of 
him with Lord Louis, the king, and Queen 
Clementia, his aforesaid parents, in every- 
thing declared; and those same barons also 
joined their evidence who had been barons at 
such time as Lord Johannes, then a boy in the 
kingdom of France, had been substituted and 
changed for another, and thence transferred 
to the parts of Tuscany, to wit, to the State 
of Siena. For making more precise investi- 
gation into the truth of this matter, while the 
said Lord Johannes was living in our king- 
dom, I secretly sent discreet and prudent men 
as messengers to the kingdom of France, who 
being at length returned, were most carefully 
examined by us, on their allegiance due to God 
and to our crown, and they positively report- 
ed and affirmed the aforesaid facts to be as 
the said Lord Johannes had asserted them. 
Wherefore, as urgently as possible, we be- 
speak your friendship, that you may consider 
the aforesaid Lord John accredited in the con- 

85 



duct of his affairs, knowing of a certainty that 
whatsoever you shall do for him we shall con- 
sider to have been done for our own crown 
and for our dearest brother. 

May your dear friendship long flourish. 

Given at Buda, May 15, A.D. 1359. 



86 



THIS MONOGRAPH WAS WRIT- 
TEN FOR THE CHICAGO 
LITERARY CLUB, AND WAS READ 
BEFORE THE CLUB ON THE 
EVENING OF MONDAY, MARCH 
THE THIRD, NINETEEN HUN- 
DRED AND TWO. THIS EDITION 
CONSISTS OF SEVEN HUNDRED 
AND FIVE COPIES, PRIVATELY 
PRINTED FOR MEMBERS OF THE 
CLUB, IN THE MONTH OF JUNE, 
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWO 




FEB 2 1903 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



c\ 



030 241 953 A 




